Category: Saving Face

The concept of saving face is one that we as Westerners may be familiar with on an abstract level, but it is an incredibly difficult phenomenon to fully understand as an outsider, and difficult to explain succinctly when we as a culture have little experience with such a thing. In the most basic definition, saving face means avoiding public embarrassment at all costs, while maintaining your status within a specific social network. But it is also much more complicated and nuanced than that. Of course, some practical examples of saving face are necessary to demonstrate how it works. To an outsider, these examples may seem absurd, perplexing or even infuriating, but in a good-natured attempt to assimilate, my husband and I will not judge, only observe objectively and try to learn (with a few chuckles here and there that can’t be helped).